Umberto Eco’s genius

A convoluted and at times weird tale but such skilful writing and narration makes it easy to listen to

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A thrilling romp

This book claims that, with one exception, all the characters actually existed in real life. My grasp of European history is not wide enough to know whether this is true but I certainly recognised a lot of people.

However, that aside, Umberto Eco is a fantastic storyteller and this book is one tall story set against the backdrop of one of the most turbulent periods in recent times. His central character is Simonini, who tells us his story from a room in Paris where he has chosen to lock himself up and travel back over his life. This takes us to Italy and Prague, to the Paris Commune and beyond to the Dreyfus case. We meet with Freemasons, secret agents, Jews, priests, revolutionaries and all sorts in between.

I often feel that Umberto Eco makes stories complicated just for the sake of it and there are points in this story where you wish he would just get on with it. But this is a minor criticism of a fun read.

The narrator adds to the enjoyment, capturing different voices and the excitement of discovery.

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14 people found this helpful

Universal gullibility....

Taking up the challenge of having read and enjoyed La Misteriosa Fiamma della Regina Loana and taking serious enjoyment from Six Walks in the Fictional Woods oI have to say initially that I absolutely loved Eco’s words of fiction.

Like some of the reviewers, I felt a little bit queasy about some of the language used in the novel towards the fictional targets of the fictional polemic. Lots of easy assumptions and old lies roll off the same pen as the wonderful lists and insights into a whole range of historical events. Like Queen Loana this is a children’s compendium of lots of old characters, narratives, ideas, fears and laughs rolled up into a huge ball of a book.

Everyone gets it and the underpinning hookum, that the world is run by the religious is still all too pervasive in our day to day secular lives. We all search for meaning and connections and where there are none we’re happy to see them in whatever nonsense we are fed. This is nonsense - troubling and distasteful at times, but nonetheless nonsense of the highest order. What next for Eco - the Nobel Laureateship? Well maybe if he were to write something a little more conciliatory to those dark figures standing in the shadowy corridors where such decisions are made behind closed, locked doors.

A wonderful book.

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1 person found this helpful

Incredible book. Exquisitely read.

Sean Barrett delivers an array of characters in an epic reading of a book set in an exotic context but so very revealing of our current political and cultural machinations being mostly out of our own hands..

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Prague Cemetery - Umberto Ecco razor sharp

Although a little heavy in places due to its unrelentingly grim theme; its dark humour, intelligence and relevance to todays issues of media and political manipulation, scapegoating and state power make it a worthwhile read. Umberto Ecco's literary style and insight are unbeatable.

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7 people found this helpful

Intriguing and perplexing in equal measure.

This is fascinating and the many descriptions of food and recipes kept me attentive. I found the characters too complex and confusing at times but that is probably owing to listening rather than seeing the names in print.
The writing is superb.

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Rambling, unpleasant to listen to

Probably the worst book I have ever read or listened to. Slow, rambling, pointless narrative from an unpleasant character.
There are no saving graces in this book, the read is over complicated peregrinations laced with vitriol that goes nowhere.
Usually I can persevere with a difficult or slow book seeing some elements of merit in it, perhaps it has a story slowly unfolding, but I found that I started to dread listening to anymore of this dreary pointless garbage.
It was a relief to give up on this and get a different book that at least gave something back for the time I invested in it. I think Sean Barrett is one of the better narrators, I have listened to a few books where he adds his magic to the story. I bet he felt he really earned his fee doing this book.

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Faux Lit 101.

This is my first go at an Umberto Eco novel and I suspect it will be my last. Why? It's 14 hours of a meticulously structured story centring on the cunning machinations of an ingeniously conceived villain. All scholarly construction, it's patently artificial and totally devoid of soul or authentic literary panache.

Instead we get a Postmodernist take on an old fashion 19c super baddie, a sophisticated forger spinning a web of intrigue and misdirection who is used as a vehicle for a scholarly tongue-in-cheek concoction of major themes from the second half of 19c European history. The villain's skewed obsession with Jesuits, Republicans, Freemasons and, above all, Anti-Semitism put him at the centre of a European web of political intrigue which sees him connecting with historical figures such as Garibaldi, Freud, Dreufus and participating in the the unification of Italy and the paris Commune. Usually as an agent for various powerful secret services or subterrainian societies.

This scholarly historical romping is quite good fun for a while but as it twists and turns hour after hour, the endless smoke and mirrors pall once we realise that for all it's ingenuity, the central character's complexity is essentially vacuous. Who he really is turns out to be an emotionally uncompelling fictional device as bogus as the documents he concocts. He exists only to push the book's subtext: history is unreliable since the truth about what has happened is entirely dependent the interpretation of documentation. The Prague Cemetery of the title is our super forger's masterpiece: a report of a completely fantasised piece of historical misdirection. A lurid gothic scene designed to disseminate the anti-sementic propaganda he lives for.

In a post script Eco tells us that incredible though it seems, everything is based upon authentic historical accounts and most characters were actual figures or composites. Big deal smarty pants. It's all in the telling. I want a novel to move me and leave me thinking. If this one's anything to go by, I suspect Eco can only manage tricks of ornate scholarly artifice. That's no substitute for Art.

But if you're happy with a fancy whodunnit type entertainment slipping you a Micky Finn of cultural pretention, this might be your ride. Fourteen hours is a long trip though, with a professor at the wheel.

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2 people found this helpful

Not for the first time Umberto Eco reader!

I had heard great things about Umberto Eco and this book was highlighted as a good read in Waterstone and Amazon. Never having read Umberto Eco, I really didn't know what to expect. I wasn't surprised at the slow start, but that slow start got longer, the tale got more complicated and i got confused. I suppose I am not the only person who will get confused but I did finish the book. Used it while I power-walked. The tale has a lot of irrelevant dat - it reads likes a recipe book in places. Does it hold the attention? Is it a page turner, no and no.



I felt that the tale was over complicated and I really didn't see the point of some of the subplots. I also thought that the only chapter which stood out , no in fact there were two chapters, was the one with the black mass - maybe Umberta wanted to through in some spice to keep his readers interested and the last chapter, which is also the shortest. I won't spoil the story by telling you about the last chapter, but for me if that chapter had been the first I would have had more interest in the story.



Maybe the book is only for fans of Eco.

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7 people found this helpful